PL.Y.RS
have just asked at a tobacconist's shop for a packet of twenty cigarettes. Hun- dreds of millions of the particular brand of cigarette for which I asked are being smoked every week. And yet I-have never been able to obtain them regularly at any time during the past fifteen years. Now I have been told that this is my own fault. If I always went to the same tobacconist and became known to him as a regular customer that tobacconist would regularly grope under the counter and produce a packet from the large store of cigarettes of this brand which he keeps there. But I don't do that. I just go in and ask for this particular brand. Sometimes I get them, though tobacconists who hand them over usually do so with an air which suggests that they are doing me a favour, or partici- pating with me in a conspiracy, or falling in with my whim despite the fact I have insulted them. Often 1 don't get them.
All this would not matter very much but for the fact that, if all the available cigarettes of this kind were openly displayed, all of us could get them anywhere and millions of people would be spared the trouble of walking, • collectively, thousands of miles every day to obtain their cigarettes from tobacconists with whom they are regularly acquainted and who can therefore be per- suaded to slip them a packet from under the counter. What a splendid revolution it would be if all the cigarettes- of this one brand, today under the counter, could be, tomorrow, all above the counter. Today everybody a conspirator and a liar. Tomor- row all honest men and honest women. And it could be done just like that.
Now I have heard that cigarette manufac- turers are about to increase their production and to concentrate the increase in the most popular brands. That is very civil of them, after all these years. But let them hurry up. And may I in the meantime exhort all your smoking readers to use a simple expedient 7 Go into any shop. Ask for the brand of cigarettes you want. If you don't get them, come out without buying any other kind. You may sometimes find yourself short of cigar- ettes and therefore long of money. But soon you will find, as 1 am finding, that the tobac- conist will hastily change his mind, call you back, grope under the counter, add a second lie to his first one, and hand over the cigar- ettes you first asked for. I hope that you will not think I am trying to advertise a particular brand. 1 have no shares in the company which makes them. The cigarettes I like are called Pl.y.rs.—Yours faithfully, London JULIUS FAX
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